Gary said:
I dont claim to be a mining expert, but if all the gold used in jewelry now, past and present wasnt enough to supply pc circuit boards and such, along with stuff produced by the non mining industry and the recycling of old circuit boards ect I would suggest the world is in a bad way, after all that must equal 10's of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of tons of gold - (of course no one is going to trade in their old gold thats just hypothetical after all gold, like fur, is all about ego and image).
In fact if that wasnt enough I would have to wonder at it and wonder what the gold industry and more importantly the legislative governements are doing? Because if the industry needed 100's of thousands of tons of gold to be produced that would equate to millions of tons, 10's of millions of tons of earth mined and thats a scary thought.
BA if your know exact figures I'd be interested to read them btw might shed no light on things.
Still as I say it's all hypothetical while gold,like oil, is money and big business things wont change, human greed will ensure that.
I'm not going to get into some facile argument on the merits or otherwise of the capitalist system. It's the one we (i.e., most of the world) live under and the alternatives seem to have been, shall we say, "not very successful". We live in the modern world. Most people in the world want stuff and things and the benefits of technology, the raw materials for which have to be got from somewhere. The computer you're reading this on wasn't plucked from a tree!
Acquisitiveness (greed) is a human thing. Nearly all of us have it to some degree. It's partly (largely?) what drives us as a species.
Gold has been used for adornment and as a store of wealth for about 6,000 years (that we have hard evidence for). For every Arab oil sheikh or over-paid footballer with solid gold bath taps, there are hundreds of millions of ordinary Asian and African folk whose wealth, individually, is stored in a few gold bangles and rings. It is what they have trusted for many hundreds of years. We can try and buck that system, but it will take some doing. Your missus might tolerate a carved wooden wedding ring ...mine (plus a few million others) wouldn't!
All of the gold
ever 'produced' by man amounts to around 150,000 tonne. Considerably more than half of that has been produced in the last 50 years (ex. 6,000 years). All of the gold ever mined would occupy a cube of side ca. 20 metre. Current annual world production is ca. 2,500 tonne.
Gold mining is a very technical business, requiring expertise in many disciplines (forget bearded old fools, with pans and shovels and donkeys). It can be very risky, at many levels. I won't pretend that gold mining (or any other kind of mining) is blameless now, or has been in the past. However, I suspect that, at this point in history, global mining practices are probably a deal less exploitative than currently obtain in -for example- the textile industry/rag trade (think about that next time you pick up that bargain T-shirt). These days, permitting of all extractive industries is incredibly expensive and long drawn-out. Local inhabitants are consulted and often benefit considerably from generous compensations (not to mention the opportunity of well-paid employment). Provisions for post-mining land reclamation and refurbishment are significant items in any mining company's balance sheet (and I have seen some admirable examples).
Well, there are a few facts and a few comments to chew on. I really can't be arsed to mount a full-on spirited defence of the extractive industries, but I'll suggest one more thing. All of us on BCUK and similar forums may be passionately interested in simple, primitive ways of doing things, but don't think for a moment that the whole of humanity could revert to knitting it's own sandals and grubbing around with sticks for nourishing roots.
Burnt Ash
